Hateland (24 page)

    On the way to meet Adolf, I read a discarded broadsheet newspaper on the train. A story about Hess had been filed by the news agency UPI on 21 August 1987:

Bavarian security officials and the family of the late Nazi war criminal Rudolph Hess, once deputy to Adolf Hitler, complained today that neo-Nazis are using his death to spread propaganda and stage provocations.

    The Hess family hid the body of the former Nazi leader, said by Allied officials to have committed suicide in a Berlin war-crimes prison Monday at age 93, somewhere in northern Bavaria after British military authorities turned it over to them Thursday.

    Wolf-Ruediger Hess, 50, son of the dead man, arranged Thursday evening for his father's burial in a family plot in Wunsiedel, about 70 miles north-east of Nuremberg - the city where Hess and other top Nazis were tried by the Allied powers after World War Two.

    Rudolph Hess, who spent most of World War Two interned in Britain after parachuting into Scotland with a bizarre peace proposal on May 10 1941, was convicted of war crimes at Nuremburg in 1946 and given a life sentence. 

I declined Adolf's offer of money and paid for my own journey, which was a bit like buying the bullets for my own firing squad.

    Sharing a long journey with Adolf - as Debra had once discovered - is like being strapped into a seat by a torturer who forces you to wear headphones through which the music of a stuck record is played at full blast.

    I can't remember the ferry, the towns we passed through or even any real conversation between us. I can just recall his trying to 'explain' things about the Nazis. When my interest showed signs of fading, when the matchsticks holding open my eyelids fell out, he'd rant about my being an 'armchair Nazi', a 'conspirator' or merely 'blind to the enemy'.

    Many years later, as I was doing a bit of research for this book, I read a tribute to Hess in a Nazi magazine. Suddenly, I felt transported back to that awful 15-hour journey with Adolf. It was like a dreadful flashback to some long-buried trauma. Adolf's ranting voice came once again to my ears, spitting terms like 'National Socialist martyr' and 'an immortal hero of the Aryan race':

Nearly sixty years ago, there was a man who held the position of deputy leader of a world power. His career was at its peak. The future for his nation, for him, and his millions of supporters looked glorious. This man gave up everything: his position, his family and eventually even his life trying to save Europe from a devastating brothers' war.

    In a sane society, such a man would be considered the hero of his century and be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with utmost praise and admiration. But we do not live in such a sane world. We live in a grotesque and twisted society under the awesome iron heel of world Zionism.

    In such a hellish place, where all values have been turned upside down, a messenger of peace between Aryan peoples is condemned as a criminal warmonger and awarded with 46 years' imprisonment before being murdered by the hidden hand of the Allies' secret service. 

We arrived in Cologne, still a long way from Bavaria. We spoke to a few German neo-Nazis outside the station. They said we had no chance of getting anywhere near Hess's funeral. Adolf didn't believe them. He viewed them contemptuously as liars, weaklings and 'conspirators'.

    In the early hours of the morning, we caught a train to Frankfurt. We took a look around the city as we waited for our next train to Wunsiedel, near the Czech border. Adolf expressed pleasure at the amount of graffiti in honour of Hess. Most daubings read simply, 'Rudolph Hess, German hero, murdered 1987'.

    We met some more German neo-Nazis. They also told us to forget about the funeral. They said the police had sealed off the town and probably wouldn't even let us leave the station. Again, Adolf refused to believe them. He suspected ZOG had paid them to dress as Nazis in order to deter true Nazis from paying homage to a great leader. He said, 'They can't fool us. We'll catch our train as planned.'

    However, when we went to board it, a group of well-padded German Robocops stopped us. They asked to see our passports and tickets, then made us accompany them to the station's police office. They said they needed to check our documents. They kept us sitting there till we'd missed our train. We remonstrated, but they threatened to arrest us.

    Eventually, they let us go, but warned us not to try to head for Wunsiedel. I said to Adolf I saw no point trying to continue: we wouldn't get anywhere near the funeral and, if we tried, we'd just end up being detained on some pretext. I thought he might rant at me for being a defeatist, but surprisingly he himself conceded defeat. We went on the piss in Frankfurt instead. Adolf said, At least we made the fucking effort. Not like the fucking others.'

    Gradually, our group of friends in south London began drifting apart. Del Boy had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment after being caught at customs with a large amount of cocaine following a trip to Holland. My brother Paul sat in jail, too. He'd been sentenced to 18 months for a violent assault. Adrian 'Army Game' and Colin had finally found the only army in the world prepared to accept them - the British Army.

    Adolf rang me on the morning of 1 September 1987.1 thought he might have been phoning to remind me of the 48th anniversary of Hitler's stormtroopers marching into Poland. I was wrong. He said, 'I've got some bad news.' He sounded quiet and sombre. 'Adrian's dead.'

    I said, 'Dead? How can he be dead?'

    Adolf explained that Adrian and three other soldiers had crashed their car in Germany. Adrian and two of his friends had died. Only the driver had survived. I thanked Adolf for calling and put the phone down. I sat on my bed and wept.

    Del Boy and my brother couldn't get day-release from prison to attend the funeral. Colin applied for compassionate leave, but the army refused to grant it. He walked out of the camp gate - and 17 years later has still not returned.

    On the day of the funeral, a few of us agreed to meet at The Royal Oak in Stockwell. It was a fitting venue because so many of our memories of Adrian revolved around it. We remained barred, but that didn't matter a jot to us that day.

    As soon as we walked in, I spotted Buzz, the brave but foolhardy barman who'd informed on Adrian, Colin, Ray and another friend and got all but Colin locked up.

    'You fucking wanker,' I said. 'Get out of our sight or you're fucking dead.'

    Buzz, never one to be intimidated, told me to get lost, so I hit him. Customers jumped to defend him and a free-for-all erupted. I held Buzz, trying to land punches in his face. Others tried to pull me off him, tearing my shirt and making my nose bleed in the process. A stand-off ensued. Buzz disappeared behind the bar and we decided to leave.

    I had to buy a new shirt before heading to Adrian's father's house on Battersea Bridge Road, from where the funeral cortege would set off. I hadn't been back there since Adrian, Colin and I had trashed the Carlsberg salesman's flat some years earlier. As soon as I walked in and saw my friends, I had to go to the toilet to stem my tears. I felt really choked up. Back in the living room, no one knew what to say.

    After a short while, someone announced, 'Adrian's here.' We all made our way outside to the hearse. The coffin containing our dead friend lay in the back, covered in flowers. The pub and several shops near his house closed. Numerous people, including a policeman, showed their respects as the cortege passed slowly on its way to the church.

    Outside the church, a few of the lads broke down. Adolf rounded on them, 'Be men, not snivelling tarts.' I told him he was out of order. We began to argue and almost exchanged blows, but others intervened and we dropped the matter.

    After the burial, we all headed back to Adrian's house for a drink. Before long, we were all steaming. Frank Sinatra's 'Strangers in the Night' was played endlessly, while Colin staggered around singing the song's 'Shoo be doo be doo' line at the top of his voice.

    Around seven, Ray and Tony said they couldn't drink any more. Adrian's dad phoned a minicab for them. We carried on drinking. Every few minutes, either Ray or Tony would pull back the front-room curtain to see if their cab had arrived. Eventually, Ray spotted a Datsun outside with its hazard lights on. For some reason, the Datsun acted as the carriage of choice for many south London minicab drivers. The two brothers said goodbye and left.

    A few seconds later, we heard Ray shouting outside at the top of his voice. We all ran out. Ray and Tony were standing next to the Datsun. A West Indian woman sat in the passenger seat. There was no sign of the driver. Ray had opened the door and was shouting, 'Please get out of my fucking cab. This is my cab. I ordered it.'

    The woman was shouting back, 'Shut the door. Fuck off or I'll call the police.'

    Ray replied, 'Call the fucking police. I don't give a fuck. The law's on my side. This is my cab.'

    And so it went on.

    Eventually, Ray tried to manhandle the woman out of the car. She resisted fiercely, slapping and punching him. Before any real damage had been done, a West Indian man ran up to the car. He said, 'Hey! Hey! What's going on? Stop it! Stop it!'

    We assumed he was the driver. Tony said, 'We ordered this cab, mate, and this bitch has tried to nick it.'

    'Cab?' said the man. 'This car ain't no cab and that "bitch" is my girlfriend. We've broken down. I just went to use the phone.'

    Somehow, it seemed like an appropriate farewell to our friend Adrian.

CHAPTER 11

ALL TATTERED AND TORN

I've been told that word experts believe the word 'hooligan' became popularised in part by a late nineteenth-century book called The Hooligan Nights. The author, Clarence Rook, claimed to have identified the word's origins in the deeds of a south-London-based Irish criminal called 'Patrick Hooligan'. A doorman with 'an exuberance of lawlessness', this probably fictional character was said to have died in prison after beating a policeman to death. His followers, 'the Hooligans', supposedly lived 'within a stone's throw of Lambeth Walk' and were described as 'sturdy young villains, who start with a grievance against society, and are determined to get their own back'.

    Be that as it may, 'supporting' Millwall became the main outlet for my anti-social urges. Being bad brings joy to those at war with 'normal' society. But being bad is never enough. You want to be the baddest. The ultimate baddies are Nazis. But high up there in the badness charts - back then, at least - sat the hooligans of Millwall FC, the 'Bushwhackers'. Their arch-rivals from West Ham United FC, the 'Inter City Firm', vied with them for top dishonours.

    In November 1987, Millwall drew West Ham ('the Hammers') in one of the early rounds of what used to be known as the League Cup. By then, the competition had some ridiculous name I've forgotten. (Gonad Cup? Simod Cup? Something like that.) It had been ten years since the teams had last met. Both sets of hooligans had spent a whole decade yearning to clash again.

    The game loomed like a hooligans' FA Cup final (if FA stood for 'Fuck Authority'). My south London friends talked of little else. Years earlier, a Millwall fan had died after being pushed in front of a tube train by West Ham fans. Now the day of retribution had arrived.

    The night before the game, a group of us went to The Gin Palace down the Old Kent Road. Millwall supporters filled the pub with their bodies and their voices. Everyone was singing as if on the terraces of 'the Den'. The favourite song - to the tune of Rod Stewart's 'Sailing' - went:

   No one likes us, 

   No one likes us, 

   No one likes us, 

   We don't care. 

   We are Millwall, 

   Super Millwall,

    We are Millwall from the Den.

A close second, also sung on a loop, to the tune of 'My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean', came:

   He's only a poor little Hammer. 

   His face is all tattered and torn. 

   He made me feel sick, 

   So I hit him with a brick, 

   And now he don't sing any more. 

I'd never been in such a charged atmosphere. The air pulsed with electricity. I could feel the static crackling in my hair. Or perhaps it was just sweat. The place seemed like a big hot-air balloon just waiting to go pop. Millwall wanted to attempt the impossible. Millwall wanted to run West Ham on their own turf in the heart of the East End. Even Hitler hadn't managed that. And he'd used bombers.

    This match aroused an intensity of violent feeling I'd never experienced before. I felt sure that pure bloodlust would ensure there'd be more than scuffles and wet punches next day. I imagined this encounter ending up like a scene from the Lebanese civil war.

    In The Gin Palace that night, the would-be warriors held the final tribal war-dance before the big battle. Being in a mob that strong, that powerful, is exhilarating. It offers a massive buzz. You know you want to damage the opposition, you know you won't run (even if you're scared) and you know you'll go to extremes you wouldn't normally contemplate.

    The next day, still a little hungover, I caught the tube to Whitechapel with Larry 'The Slash', Ray, Tony, 'Benny the Jew' and a few others. A lot of the Bushwhackers had arranged to meet there. Only fools would have gone in a small group to Upton Park for such a game. Most of us carried knives. I had a six-inch knife which, when sheathed, looked like a wooden ruler. When around 200 of us had assembled, we went out into Whitechapel High Street, but the police refused to let us wander round the East End and herded us back onto the tube.

    The word was that West Ham would be in a pub called The Horn of Plenty at Mile End. I knew the pub. It stood next to the tube station. Anticipating an ambush, we all agreed that, as soon as the train pulled into the station, we'd steam out and surprise any would-be attackers.